Workshop 2: Making Writing Meaningful

Damond Moodie's Reflections

The importance of student connection

I think it's important for students to find connection with the
things that they write about because it creates a sense of ownership.
And that sense of ownership, I think, propels the project forward. If
they're to look at it from the opposite point of view, if they're
not excited about it, then it becomes laborious and they're less
likely to do their best work, they're less likely to approach it
with a sense of "I want to complete this." But when they're
excited about it, you know, there's no end to the lengths that they'll
go to get the project done and to inject it with a sense of pride.

One of the main types of writing that I do is current events. We start
working with that within the first month of school, and the purpose is
to give the students an opportunity to connect with the significant
events that are going on around the world and throughout our community.
But also, I think, it gives them a sense of place within the community
and within the world—just to be able to read a newspaper, or hear
a story, or see something on the Internet that they connect with that
interests them. Whether they're asking questions about it because they
don't understand
it or if they're having an opinion about it, I think it generates
this kind
of understanding of, you know, where their place is. You know, in that
sense of, oh, I have an opinion about this, or I'm not sure what
that means, or it's interesting to me. So I like to use that as
a way to kind of, you know, pique their interest about the world around
them.

I do journals with my students, you know, a couple times a week and they're
just basic warm-up type things, you know, seven or eight minutes long,
but I provide the prompt. When I provide the prompt, I really strive
to find something that everyone will be able to make a comment on, but
sometimes
that's not successful and what I get is, "Well, I don't know,"
or "I don't have anything to say about that." And I've really
tried to work with my students to get them to, even if they don't feel
like they have an opinion or they're not quite sure what the answer
is, that at least they can, you know, explore some thoughts or possibilities.

Now, on the other hand, when it's completely student driven, when
we're doing autobiographical incidents or it's a choice journal—because
I do offer that sometimes—they tend to find something that is
of worth to them. And something that, you know, I would normally allow
them seven minutes, seven minutes comes and I say, you know, are we ready
to share and I've got a whole host of hands that are saying, no,
I'm not finished yet I still have a lot to do. And that's
exciting for me and it kind of prompts me to sometimes, you know, offer
them more opportunities to just, you know, go off and say whatever
they have to say.